gaming rig on the budget

[dave3815]

i need to build a gaming rig for my classmate and he only have a budget of 800 USD.
he says that he wants a dual core processor that can ba overclocked to 3.6ghz on air.
i think it is possible but i really can't find the right parts, do you guys have any suggestion???

 

[Eureka]

That's easy.

AMD Athlon II X2 250 for $90, which has been proven to get to 3.75 on air by anandtech's reviewers.
Gigabyte 790 GX motherboard, $110
4 GB DDR2 Ram, $40 AR
ATI HD 4890 $160 after savings
Hitachi 1TB or WD 640GB, $70
Case and PSU, $200

That's $670. If you need a bit more power, upgrade the dual core to a triple core 720, which does OC to 3.6ghz regularly.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Eureka
That's easy.

AMD Athlon II X2 250 for $90, which has been proven to get to 3.75 on air by anandtech's reviewers.
Gigabyte 790 GX motherboard, $110
4 GB DDR2 Ram, $40 AR
ATI HD 4890 $160 after savings
Hitachi 1TB or WD 640GB, $70
Case and PSU, $200

That's $670. If you need a bit more power, upgrade the dual core to a triple core 720, which does OC to 3.6ghz regularly.

This is a good setup. You could even sneak in a X3 720 BE in there and overclock that or perhaps unlock a 4th core.

 

[richierich1212]

Or 550 and get lucky like me and unlock 2 cores.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
This is a good setup. You could even sneak in a X3 720 BE in there and overclock that or perhaps unlock a 4th core.

+1

The 720 BE performs as well as a X4 955 BE in many games. That is a great budget gaming processor and for $100 more the X4 955 BE is within reach and still under $800.

GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard = $79.99

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) = $64.99

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz = $245.00

XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 = $149.99

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW = $59.99

Antec EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 = $79.99

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB = $94.99

SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL = $23.99

Grand total = $798.93 before shipping.

Now you can change a couple of things around like:

Cpu: AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz = $139.00

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB = $69.99

Video Card: XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 = $119.99

1080P Monitor: Acer X213Hbid Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor 1080P = $149.99

add these with the mobo, ram, case and PSU from above and the grand total is: $787.92

You have many options in that price range, including on the Intel side too. My posting should help you see what is possible on as little as $800.